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Canada got the last hurrah at the Celebration of Light Saturday evening, closing the three-night event with a winning display. Canada was declared the winner of the event, with Brazil and China finishing second and third, respectively.

Filming of Fantastic Four reboot has fled from British Columbia but with some understanding of the film industry by the provincial government, it didn’t need to be so, a reader says.

Photograph by: Photo credit: Diyah Pera

The Liberal government doesn’t seem to understand the film industry costs the province nothing.

Finance Minister Mike de Jong is wrong in stating “the B.C. government expects to pay out $380 million this year in subsidies” because these payments are not subsidies; they are repayments of a portion of cast, crew and vendor income taxes.

An out-of-province or foreign project shooting here spends the vast majority of its budget in B.C., all of which is new money entering the province. Every piece of equipment, vehicle, camera, location, prop, costume, furniture, and office is rented or purchased from a B.C. company or individual, virtually all of it attracting seven-per-cent sales tax. Cast and crew members are paid well, and, along with employees of rental houses and industry vendors, pay income taxes to the federal and B.C. governments.

The tax credits repaid to producers come from these income taxes. The industry costs the government nothing because it funds its own tax credit.

The B.C. government is shooting itself and B.C. in the foot by not understanding this fact. Using the example in your article, for a project spending $100 million, the labour tax credit may have been about $15 million, foreign star wages, income taxes paid to the federal government and payments to non-BC suppliers another $15 million, leaving $70 million of new money entering the B.C. economy.

My hope is the B.C government will learn how industry financing works before needlessly throwing away hundreds of millions of dollars to other jurisdictions.

This article cites ICBC statistics that report that for the four years 2008-12 there were no accidents between cyclists and motorists. That confirms my opinion that cyclists were a lot safer when there were no bike lines and they occupied the same lanes as motorists. Each respected the other and for the most part acted accordingly.

It seems to me the city’s recent policy on bike lanes has generated a serious antipathy between motorists and cyclists to the detriment of both parties’ needs. Ramming the Point Grey Road proposal through City Hall has done nothing to improve matters but will only make it worse, depriving those unable to cycle and must drive for reasons of health or old age, of the occasional trip along one of the most scenic drives in the City.

Patrick Gannon, Richmond

The insanity of solving the 21st century traffic problems with a 19th century technology (bicycling) must be evident to any clear thinking person. Old people, obese, infirm, small children, pregnant women, tradesmen with tools, out of shape people and others will not bicycle to work. Many of those, who will, will not do it in heavy rains and cold winters.

Further, bicycling can be very dangerous; view the picture in the article. It is not easy to bicycle on hilly streets and for longer distances.

I am all for recreational bicycling, but (Mayor Gregor) Robertson and his gang will succeed only in greater clogging of Vancouver streets with resulting pollution, wasted workers’ time and greater car wear.

Given the government heavy-handiness shown in the last redrawing of B.C.’s electoral boundaries, Vaughn Palmer provides us with a timely reminder that the last boundary commission recommended development of a new legislative model by 2013.

Since “effective representation” has become central to the Supreme Court’s redistribution criteria, it may prove difficult for the province to continue the dilution of the Lower Mainland votes of its South Asian, Chinese and other East Asian cultural communities, which will have grown to about 1.5 million residents by 2017. Here, at least, an “ethnic outreach” in the drawing of a new electoral map may not only be a good thing but required for an effective representation of B.C.’s social mosaic.

The Vancouver Sun has given considerable coverage recently to the supposed economic benefits of the proposed New Prosperity gold-copper mine, but scant attention to what’s currently being revealed at the federal review about the likely environmental and social impacts.

For that matter, I didn’t see Mayor Kerry Cook at this week’s hearings on aquatic impacts. Too bad. Had she been there she probably would not have been quite so assured about touting the project for “innovation and environmental stewardship.”

Geochemists, fisheries biologists and other scientists pointed out likely many effects should the mine proceed. The audience, minus the mayor, heard extensive testimony predicting a host of probable impacts, to fish, aquatic communities, water quality, water circulation, grizzly bears and the over-all physical, social and ecological health of the region. Scientists criticized inadequate industry plans to “mitigate” such impacts. One lake biologist predicted the death of Fish Lake within 10 years, should the mine proceed.

The promise of jobs will always make it easier to gloss over the environmental and social costs certain to be associated with such projects. But British Columbians deserve more from politicians. As a start, how about acknowledging human well-being also strongly depends on a healthy environment?

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